Drawing device and information processing apparatus

1. A drawing device that regards an object to be drawn as a collection of a plurality of polygons, and maps texture data onto the polygons, to thereby draw the object, the drawing device comprising:

a storage circuit comprising at least (N−1)*(M−1) regions each storing in a continuously accessible way information items of four texture pixels in two adjacent columns and two adjacent rows of the texture data, wherein N and M represent the numbers of columns and rows of texture pixels constituting the texture data;

an address calculation circuit calculating an address where the information items constituting the texture data of a set of the texture pixels are stored based on texture coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the polygons;

a readout circuit reading out the set of the information items from the address calculated by said address calculation circuit; and

a synthesis circuit synthesizing the set of the information items read out by said readout circuit using bilinear filtering, and

wherein said storage circuit packs the texture data of the set of texture pixels into a set of data, and stores the set of data in the continuously-accessible region of said storage circuit, and

said address calculation circuit calculates a texture address corresponding to an address by a region where the texture data of one texture pixel is stored based on texture coordinates corresponding to each pixel, and shifting the texture address left by two bits to thereby calculate the starting address of a region where the set of data corresponding to the texture coordinates are stored.

2. The drawing device according to claim 1 , further comprising a drawing circuit for drawing, based on texture pixel information synthesized by said synthesis circuit, a corresponding pixel of the polygons.

3. The drawing device according to claim 1 , further comprising a packing circuit for packing the set of the information items into a set of data, and storing the set of data in the continuously-accessible region of said storage circuit.

4. An information processing apparatus that regards an object to be drawn as a collection of a plurality of polygons, and maps texture data onto the polygons, to thereby draw the object, the information processing apparatus comprising:

a storage unit comprising at least (N−1)*(M−1) regions each storing in a continuously accessible way information items of four texture pixels in two adjacent columns and two adjacent rows of the texture data, wherein N and M represent the numbers of columns and rows of texture pixels constituting the texture data;

an address calculation unit calculating an address where the information items constituting the texture data of a set of the texture pixels are stored based on texture coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the polygons;

a readout unit reading out the set of the information items from the address calculated by said address calculation unit; and

a synthesis unit synthesizing the set of the information items read out by said readout unit using bilinear filtering, and

wherein said storage circuit packs the texture data of the set of texture pixels into a set of data, and stores the set of data in the continuously-accessible region of said storage circuit, and

said address calculation circuit calculates a texture address corresponding to an address by a region where the texture data of one texture pixel is stored based on texture coordinates corresponding to each pixel, and shifting the texture address left by two bits to thereby calculate the starting address of a region where the set of data corresponding to the texture coordinates are stored.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4 , further comprising a drawing unit for drawing, based on texture pixel information synthesized by said synthesis unit, a corresponding pixel of the polygons.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4 , further comprising a packing unit for packing the set of the information items into a set of data, and storing the set of data in the continuously-accessible region of said storage unit.

7. A drawing method associated with drawing an object as a collection of polygons where texture data is mapped onto the polygons, comprising:

storing information items in at least (N−1)*(M−1) regions each storing in a continuously accessible way information items of four texture pixels in two adjacent columns and two adjacent rows of the texture data, wherein N and M represent the numbers of columns and rows of texture pixels; and

calculating an address where the information items corresponding to a set of the texture pixels are stored based on texture coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the polygons, where the set of information items are read by an access to the continuously-accessible region;

wherein said storing includes packing the texture data of the set of the texture pixels into a set of data and storing the set of data in the continuously-accessible region, and

said calculating includes calculating a texture address corresponding to an address by a region where the texture data of one texture pixel is stored, based on texture coordinates corresponding to each pixel and shifting the texture address left by two bits to thereby calculate the starting address of a region where the set of data corresponding to the texture coordinates are stored.